The young social media company hit Wall Street and took off Thursday even after investors and analysts were lukewarm on its prospects and questioned whether the money-losing operation was just another over-valued flash in the pan.

Twitter Inc. went public with the disastrous Facebook Inc. initial public offering still fresh in the minds of many and as other social media companies were suffering on the market.

But Twitter appears to have learned from the mistakes of Facebook and other recently public Web companies. And that paid off. Its stock started trading 73 percent above its initial public offering price of $26. At the end of its first day as a public company, it was valued at $24 billion.